A Setback for the Baghdad Security Plan

Less than three days after having informed George W. Bush that the Baghdad Security Plan is experiencing a "brilliant success", and forty-eight hours after Condoleezza Rice’s surprise visit greeting the results of this operation, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri-Al-Maliki, called for the people to support the Iraqi armed forces "to drive out the remaining Saddamists and Takfiris (jihadists) and all outlaws."

As Washington presses for results, the Iraqi head of state is reduced to saying that this highly publicized security plan is far from producing them. In fact, on 18 February alone, at least 65 people were killed and two GI’s went to their deaths as a result of automatic weapons fire and grenade attacks in the Iraqi capital. On 19 February, once again in Baghdad, two US soldiers were killed and seventeen others wounded.

"Insurgents staged a coordinated attack against a multinational force post north of the capital [... ] using a vehicle rigged with explosives driven on a kamikaze mission", the US army indicated in an official statement without further elaboration. These latest deaths bring the number of US military losses to 3132 since the fall of Saddam’s regime in April 2003. This suicide attack occurred a few hours after two bombs exploded in the Karrada quarter killing ten and wounding at least forty.

However, concerning this security operation for the Iraqi capital called “Operation Imposing Law”, the Iraqis and Americans did not haggle over the means : 110000 men including nearly 40000 heavily armed GI’s, were deployed in the Iraqi capital. In addition to the fixed control points and other military checkpoints, 20000 mixed patrols are at work on the streets of Baghdad. More than 50 operations involving at least a company (between 120 and 150 men) have been led between 10 February and 16 February. This, while the entries into Baghdad have been reduced in order to prevent the infiltration of commandos and the transport of weapons and explosives.